LONG NAMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 194, 18 August 1930, Page 6

LONG NAMES.

A paragraph in a London, newspaper recently asked who is the most quaintly-named person in the world.* It mentioned that during the Boer War an English child was christened Bobs Kitchener Buller Magersfontein Bulawayo Smith. But there are men and women who, as the result of the eccentricity of their parents, have had to carry through life much longer names than that. One of the British casualty lists published during the Great War announced the death ol Captain L. S. D. 0. F. F. T.T. de 0. P. TollemacheTollemache, of the Leicester Regiment. The full name of this officer, who was one of a family of nine brothers and sisters, all of whom bore great names, was Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudati Filius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache. He was a son of the Rev. Ralph Tollemache, who, for some unexplained reason, had doubled his name, and apparently been so pleased with the result that he went on adding to it. One of his sons declined to carry the burden of a long string of names, and in 1908 stripped himself of most of them by legal process. He had been christened Leo Quintus Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache, and he shortened it to Leo de Arellana Tollemache.

Another brother was still more heavily burdened with Christian names. He was Lyonel Ydwallo Odin Nestor Egbert Lyonel Toedmag Hugh Erchen Wyne Saxon Esa Cromwell Orma Nevill Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache. Equally heavy burdens were laid on his sisters at the baptismal font. The eldest was Mabel Ethel Helminghain Huntingtower Beatrice Blazonberrie Evangeline Vise de Lou Orellana Plantagenet Saxon Toedmag Tollemache-Tollemache; and the next sister bore the names of Lyonesse Matilda Dora Ida Agnes Ernestine Curson Paulet Wilbraham Joyce Eugenie Bentley Saxona Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache.

Another eccentric parent was William Harris, who, in the closing decades of last century, achieved fame in London as a sausage maker, and was known as the Sausage King. He named his three sons William 1., William 11. and William 111., and his three daughters Elizabeth 1., Elizabeth 11. and Elizabeth 111.

Every schoolboy who possesses even an elementary knowledge of English history has heard of Praise God Barebones. He was a member of the Parliament summoned by Cromwell in 1653, which met for the first time on July 4, and was dissolved five months later. It is known in history as the Little Parliament, because it consisted of only 139 members, or derisively as the Barebones Parliament. Most history books assert that Praise God Barebones was a leading "member of this Parliament, which was named after him. But as far as available records show he was a very unimportant member, and took no part in the debates. He was a leather merchant carrying on business in Fleet Street, and had been selected by Cromwell to represent the city of London in Parliament. Hi& name was not Barebones, but Barbone. Carlyle, with his passionate admiration for Cromwell and all his works, scorned the wit which gave, birth to the name Barebones Parliament. "Truly it seems rather a distinguished Parliament —even though Mr. Praise God Barbone, 'the leather merchant in Fleet Street,' be, as all mortals must admit, a member of it," wrote Carlyle in "Cromwell." "Praise God, though he deals in leather, and has a name which can be misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents; to be himself a man of piety, of understanding and weight—and even of considerable capital, my witty flunky friends!" According to report, Praise God Barbone had two brothers, who bore even more remarkable names. One had been christened " Clirist-Came-Tnto-the-World-to-Savc Barbone," and the other, "If-Christ-Hacl-Nbt-Died-Thou-Had'st-Been-Damned Barbone."